Ishmael Beah: Life in Seirra Leone

In A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah writes about his experiences as a young boy soldier in Sierra Leone, a country which, according to the CIA, suffered: "domestic fighting among disparate ethnic groups, rebel groups, warlords, and youth gangs in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone gradually abate, the number of refugees in border areas has begun to slowly dwindle". Throughout the novel Beah transports the reader into a war zone. He uses imagery: "Bodies, furniture, clothes and all kinds of property were scattered all over". Beah also writes of how the rebels just left the bodies there: "There were bodies everywhere and flies were feasting on the congealed blood on them". According to many resources refugee camps where created, but don't do much. National Gepographic states, "Many live in refugee camps, fleeing persecution, armed conflict, murder, rape, and mutilation. Being in a refugee camp doesn't mean you're finally safe. It doesn't mean you're sure to be fed. It means your odds are better. Maybe." Author Sebastian Junger also writes about the tragedies about Sierra Leone: "The last time the RUF had occupied Freetown, in 1999, they'd massacred thousands of civilians and set up checkpoints where they methodically chopped the arms off of everyone they chose not to kill. It looked like the horror show was about to happen again, and the population was in a panic."A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier Ishmael Beah lived in the fears that the people now in Sierra Leone go through, and he also was the fear that Sierra Leone runs from.